[Oberon] List of extensions for Project Oberon compiler

[Chris Burrows]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Oberon [mailto:oberon-bounces at lists.inf.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of
> August Karlstrom
> Sent: Monday, 1 February 2021 4:59 AM
> To: ETH Oberon and related systems
> Subject: [Oberon] List of extensions for Project Oberon compiler
> 
> Does anyone know if the language extensions that the Project Oberon
> compiler provides in relation to the Oberon report (from 2016) is
> documented somewhere? I'm thinking of features such as dynamic arrays
> and structural equivalence of arrays used in assignments.
> 

My understanding is that any language extensions that exist in the Project
Oberon compiler are 'undocumented features' which means that you cannot rely
on them to be supported or available in a future release or to exist in any
other implementations of Oberon. Some might have originally have been
candidates for inclusion in the Language Report but were rejected for some
reason e.g. too implementation-dependent. The risk of describing them in
print is that it bestows some sort of 'official' status on them which leads
to unrealistic expectations and complaints if they do not appear in other
implementations. 

Why do you ask the question? One of things on my possible 'list of things to
do' is to produce a version of Project Oberon that is 100% compliant with
the Language Report. I believe that is eminently feasible. If you have a
similar ambition then I would be happy to collaborate with you.

BTW I didn't think that dynamic arrays were implemented in the official
Project Oberon compiler. Maybe we are thinking of something different. Can
you provide a simple test program that compiles on Project Oberon shows what
you are referring to?

Regards,
Chris Burrows
CFB Software
https://www.astrobe.com/RISC5